Being Grateful: Sixty-First Edition

Hello everyone! Happy Spring! I didn’t realize it was here already until I looked at a calendar a few days ago. =)

Oddly enough, we had warmer weather last week than this week, but it’s averaging around 65*, so I’ll take it.

I spoke with my grandma yesterday and she said they were dealing with another bout of snow, so I kind of have to be grateful for our weather!

Wherever you are in the world, I hope you get to experience some nice weather this weekend. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is allergy season. When we moved down here last April, I felt crappy for about three months!

Anyway, some interesting things happened this week, so let’s review.

A Fire Scare

Earlier this week, I was woken up by the sound of a loud “BEEP, BEEP BEEP” noise coming from somewhere in the apartment. I immediately proceeded to have a panic attack while looking around for my cats.

There was just one string of beeps, which seemed a little odd. If there was actually a fire, wouldn’t it be going off continuously?

I moved around the apartment – I didn’t smell smoke anywhere. I decided it was probably a test. Then it sounded again.

I called R at work, because that’s totally helpful and rational (I am not good around fires possible fires). He thought it could be a test, too, but we hadn’t received any notifications from our apartment complex.

I finally made my way outside. Nothing smelled like smoke, I didn’t see any smoke, and no one was gathering outside the buildings.

Since we’re on the third floor, I was able to look out over the parking lot. I noticed a van with “Fire Sprinkler System” on the side of it.

Looking around, I saw several guys going around to each of the buildings, hoses in hand.

At this point I was still pretty flustered because the fire alarms were going off right in my damn ear, and it was worse outside. It brought back some bad memories from high school fire drills!

R decided to come home to check everything out and calm me down because I could barely breathe. He then went to the office where he was told it was just a test.

Apparently, the sprinkler guys came unannounced, so they didn’t have time to alert anyone. I call BS on that.

Needless to say, I’m extremely grateful it ended up being a test. It got me thinking about what would have happened if it wasn’t, though. I definitely need to be better prepared.

Power Outage

So the strange happenings continue the next day, when the power suddenly goes out.

I was working from my laptop in the living room when the wireless cut out. Since we were plagued with wifi issues last year, I figured the router just needed to be rebooted.

It was a beautiful sunny day, so I had no lights on in the apartment. I made my way into our closet, where the router is, and went to turn the light on.

Nothing.

I turned the bathroom light on.

Nothing.

I went outside and saw that the stove and microwave clocks were both off.

Oh, crap. The power was out.

I call R again to let him know what’s going on. I decided to look at the website of our energy company, which happened to have a handy outage map.

Sure enough, there was a triangle right over our complex. 452 people were without power, and the estimated time to be fixed was another 3 hours away.

I had work to do!! Working from home is great, until something happens with the power or technology that’s completely out of your control.

But, thankfully the power came back much sooner than that – it was probably out for 30 minutes, at most. I was extremely grateful I didn’t have to relocate somewhere to get internet. (What can I say, I like staying comfortable!)

My Family is Visiting Soon!

I’m so excited that my grandma, cousin, and aunt are coming down to visit during spring break.

It feels like I was just in NY, but it’s been almost a month since I’ve been back. Plus, I didn’t get to see my aunt or cousin while I was there.

We’re not sure what we’re going to do yet, but we’re hoping the weather will be warm enough to visit the beach a few times.

My grandma is also quite sick of the snow, and we keep telling her to consider moving, so … we’ll see, but of course, I’m not holding my breath after last time!

I’m Going Back to NY!

So many exclamation points!

Yes, I already have plans to go back to NY in June. My cousins asked me if I was available to babysit, and I gladly said yes.

This might sound a little strange…why ask me when I’m all the way down here?

Well, my one cousin has to travel a lot, and in June, she’s doing 3 trips back-to-back. She was extremely upset at the notion of being away from her daughter for that long.

One of her trips is to LI, so she asked if I could fly up and babysit while she’s working, this way she can bring her daughter with her. The baby is nearing 2, and she’s extremely mobile. She didn’t want to ask my grandma to watch her since she’d probably get tired after a few hours.

She’s covering my flight and I’m super excited to be able to spend time with my … second cousin, I guess, since I barely ever got to see her when I was living up there. It’s pretty much a win-win situation for everyone.

I’ve actually never babysat before (I don’t really want children, and I’ve had next to no exposure to babies), so I asked my mom to come along. Her and I had been planning on taking a trip later in June anyway.

I’m thinking of this as a trial run to see how I do with kids. It’ll be an interesting experiment! Any time I’ve been around her she’s been a doll, so I’m not too worried.

Overall, I have a lot to look forward to these next few months!

What have you been grateful for this week? When’s the last time you visited with family or friends?

Next Post

Written By

Erin

Erin is a total goofball who sucks at writing about herself (though she finds referring to herself in the third person amusing). When she's not editing videos, she can be found messing around in Photoshop, laughing at her cats, watching YouTube videos, playing video games, chair dancing, sipping coffee, or any random combination of the above.

32 Comments

Have fun with the babysitting! Even if you’re not experienced, I’m sure you’ll do fine! I’ve started watching my two nephews (2 1/2 and 7mos) and even though I’m inexperienced, too, everything comes really naturally. We legit have a lot of fun!

I am NOT good with kids at all, which is why I don’t think it will come naturally, haha. I have no nurturing instincts whatsoever when it comes to kids. But since she’s family, I’m sure it’ll be different. I’m just glad my mom will be there as backup!

I hate fire alarms! Obviously I like them in the sense that they save lives, but that beeping sound is so annoying. Ours goes off often at work for whatever reason and one of the alarms is right above my head. It scares the crap out of me everytime.

Yes, it’s absolutely deafening when you’re standing right beside them. I hated walking through the hallways at school trying to file out while standing under them. Just adds to the feeling of terror that’s probably already present!

OH my gosh – the fire thing must’ve been SO scary! One time our detectors went off at 4a.m. Talk about a serious adrenaline rush!! I hear you on the power outages too. That’s one thing about the work we all do as freelancers: a power outage or computer malfunction means no work – hate that!

It’s slightly embarrassing how my mind immediately goes blank and panic takes over. After the incident I was mentally smacking myself – that kind of mindset isn’t going to save lives or anything if a fire should ever happen. :/ Haha, thanks for having faith in me! It helps that she’s apparently very easy to take care of and easily entertained.

That’s crazy about the fire alarm people, because guess what? The SAME THING happened to my Mom last week! Her fire alarm started going off, but instead of freaking out, she was just really pissed haha. She knew it was a drill or test of some sort, because it was during the day and she didn’t see any fire/smoke.

The fire alarm guys came up and told her the same story – there was “no time” to warn people ahead of time. Mom gave them a piece of her mind… I was like, you might not want to tick off the fire people, Mom! But I understand where she was coming from – some people have little kids whose naps were interrupted, other people in her area are elderly and have anxiety issues, etc. It’s very inconsiderate and actually dangerous for some people who can’t handle disruption!

That’s awful! I don’t get it. How is there not enough time to warn people? Sounds like it was a case of forgetfulness. And I do have anxiety issues around fire – when I was younger, there were 3 fires within a year or two span on our block. One was right next door. I still have horrible memories from it, and I couldn’t sleep for days afterward. Thankfully no one was ever hurt, but the thought still freaks me out. To me, it was kind of the equivalent of shouting FIRE in a movie theatre. -_-

I was more surprised no one else was wandering around outside, though … It sets a bad precedent. What if there IS a fire someday? Are people not going to take it seriously? Ack.

I feel you there Erin. That’s really irritating when there’s no power and your boss is waiting for your work. Oh my! I remember I went to cafe just to charge and use power so that I could work and beat the deadlines. I stayed there for three hours and imagine how many cups I bought.

I also had a bad experience with fire alarms before.I was at the office and the drill was unannounced. The alarm was positioned right behind my desk. It was so loud. I panicked! I ran, screamed and did some crazy running again. Good thing it was just a drill, I’m better prepared now.

That is ridiculous! I can’t believe they didn’t warn everyone ahead of time. Sadly for me, I have incidents with my building’s fire alarms all the time and now I don’t even respond to them (bad, I know). Anyways, just wanted to let you know that this series of yours is such a wonderful idea. Being grateful for the everyday things really lets you step back and appreciate your life as a whole :)

Thank you – I’m glad you enjoy these posts! There was definitely a lack of reaction from most people as I was the only one who went outside to see what (if anything) was going on. It’s not good to have false alarms!

I work from home and definitely know how much of a bummer it is when the power goes out. I can usually just go to a coffee shop if needs be. But my emergency plan involves us using the power outlet in our car, an extension cord, and a lot of weird looks from the neighbors.

So happy that you are getting a free trip back to LI!! Maybe we can try to meet up when you are back in town. This week I was thankful for a girl’s night I had on Saturday. I very rarely get a Saturday night to share with my ladies and we had a blast.

I will more than likely be headed toward the city at some point during my trip! Since I have to babysit during the week, I probably won’t be able to get out there until the weekend. We’re still waiting on flight prices to book our return flight, but we’ll be up there in the beginning of June.

Ha, I was planning on a mixed sick/work from home day today, and what do you know, of course the wifi decided to go down! Sigh.

We seem to have fire drills all the dang time at work. Most recently we only got about 10 mins notice but for some reason the email was delayed in coming through to me so I had no idea the alarm was coming.

I’m grateful for having moved house and for the kindness of other people.

Glad to hear you were able to find a place – seems to be a lot of positives from your post. =) It’s always a relief to have your living situation somewhat under control/improved. I’m kind of regretting signing our lease again.

I’m really glad there wasn’t a real fire! We actually had a small fire in our oven earlier this year and it was super scary. Luckily, my bf was there (b/c I would have just freaked) and use the fire extinguisher to put it out and no damage was done. It reminded me of how crucial renters insurance is. I’m grateful to be taking some time off from work next week. Oh and good luck with the babysitting! Toddlers are a fun age but they’re quick and curious about everything :)

I’m glad there was no damage! Yikes, I would have been freaking out, too. If I start to smell smoke, I start panicking. You’re right, though, renter’s insurance is definitely a good idea. We’re required to have it here, thankfully. Enjoy your time off!

One thing that infuriates me is when property managers are not on top of their game. They NEED to alert people when things like that happen. At the very least you should have received an email, text, or even paper notification. So ridiculous!

The trip in June sounds great and I’m sure you will have fun. Victoria and I do not necessarily NOT want kids (I’m fairly certain we both for sure want to at least adopt some day) but I also do not have much experience around kids and having kids right now does not sound fun. I’m sure babysitting will be fun, though, and I don’t mind short little things like that.

I’ve been taking allergy shots for over a year and a half now and was JUST about to get to the maintenance dose when I came down with a nasty sinus infection last week. I blame the Spring weather and unfortunately it’s meant feeling crappy and not being able to do much about it. I have all the meds you can take for stuff like that (besides antibiotics) so hopefully it clears up without antibiotics. With that being said, I highly recommend you check out allergy shots (immunotherapy). It’s the only long-term solution. Very big time commitment but in the end it’s worth it imo, especially if you are young.

Yeah, the general consensus after living here for a year is that the people at the leasing office don’t care. At all. That’s why I’m glad we were able to at least negotiate our rent down a little. I was fuming after the last incident!

I’m definitely enjoying being child-free for the time being. I’m just really glad my mom will be there to help me, otherwise I’d probably be panicking about every little thing!

Is it bad I hate shots? And visits to the doctor’s office? Haha. I know it’s not worth the suffering, especially as sinus infections are so nasty, and OTC medicine rarely works for me. I’ve been sneezing slightly more lately and waking up with headaches and a stuffy nose, but it hasn’t yet gotten to the awful proportions it did last year. Here’s hoping I adjusted! Or else I might have to look into it…